Pomp & Circumstance 2026: What’s It Like To Graduate Where Everyone Knows Your Name?
Speaking for Schoharie County’s future scholars, scientists, mechanics, and politicians, their families and friends, our graduations are pretty cool. And at schools like Cobleskill-Richmondville, something you'll love being a part of.
It’s all over now—and just beginning. Cobleskill-Richmondville graduates toss their caps sky-high after ceremonies on the football field.
Imagine a graduation like this:
Seated with 197 of your closest friends on folding chairs in the middle of the football-slash-soccer field against the breathtakingly beautiful backdrop of cliffs that saw action in the American Revolution.
The nearest neighbors to rural, Upstate NY’s Cobleskill-Richmondville High School? Yep: Cows.
Your nearest neighbors are Holsteins and Jerseys. (Cows, if you didn’t grow up in Cobleskill, the biggest town–and largest school district–in Schoharie County.)
Some of those friends you’ve known since preschool.
Others, you met just last year. Everyone knows your name, there’s a chance your parents went to school here, and a chance they’re a teacher (or superintendent) at another, nearby school.
All of us homegrown in one way or another, not just at Cobleskill-Richmondville, but at our five other schools: Schoharie, Middleburgh, Sharon Springs, Jefferson, and Gilboa-Conesville (The Best School By a Dam Site.)
A little bit nervous, C-R seniors share some minute giggles.
High school graduation in Schoharie County, where musicians, scholars, athletes, thespians, farmers, scientists, artists, accountants, politicians, auto mechanics, doctors, teachers, and lawyers all crossed the stage, the Class of 2026, on its way to bigger things, even if it brings them back home.
Statistically speaking, we are…
11 schools (including Elementary schools) in six districts serving 3,651 students.
The top-ranked schools (in order, based on combined math and reading proficiency test scores): Cobleskill-Richmondville High School, Middleburgh Junior/Senior High School, and Sharon Springs Central School.
Average teacher-to-student ratio: 11:1.
Average graduation rate: 87.2 percent.
Average per-pupil spending: $15,859. (New York State average is $14,719; national average, $13,239.)
We’re also home to SUNY Cobleskill with a handful of two- and four-hour colleges an hour or so away.
Grad-to-be families know to get there early. At Cobleskill-Richmondville, the line stretched out to the highway.
But graduation… IYKYK to get there early.
The best seats (and parking spots) go quickly and setting up all those photos with family and friends takes time.
At Cobleskill-Richmondville? That meant getting there at 6. Because by 6:30? The line of family and friends waiting to get onto the field stretched nearly back to the cows.
C-R co-val Ava Yorke shares some unexpected advice from classmates. Ava spent all 13 years in the C-R District.
And still, it all went like clockwork. Because C-R’s done this before. Rain in the forecast? Bring your umbrellas. Cause we’re not moving the show inside.
Two grads shared the top spot and with the sal, their thoughts on their years at C-R were broadcast over the Kiss Cam behind them, loud and proud for those in the back row (or bleachers), before grad-by-grad-by-grad, classmates crossed the stage for their diplomas.
There was music by the Senior Choir (Bohemian Rhapsody) and retiring teachers (and a science experiment) were acknowledged and applauded. Mostly, the nearly-graduates ran the show.
Smalltown graduation…a scene with really only minor variations repeated by Spartans (Sharon Springs), The Storm (Schoharie), Knights (Middleburgh), Wildcats (Gilboa-Conesville, BTW, The Best School By a Dam Site) ), and Jayhawks, (Jefferson), from one end of Schoharie County to the other.
A June tradition in a place where opportunity is what you make of it, and everyone’s invested in seeing you succeed.
At C-R, the night ended just before dark, tassels switched, caps thrown sky-high as the bats came out. And if you listened closely over the cheers, you could hear the cows just down the road heading back out to pasture for the night.
